Find out all you need to know about Quality and Safeguarding without leaving your desk! Hear from expert speakers discussing a range of quality-related topics.

Learn about emerging lessons from the Royal Commission into Aged Care, NDIS Worker Screening and its implications, and the NDIS Practice Standard audit process. Find out what the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework means for staff across an organisation – from frontline service delivery staff to Boards and governing bodies.

If you work in the disability sector (or are looking to), then this virtual conference is for you.

You can view presentations from sector experts as they are released throughout the day on Tuesday, 25 June 2019. You can also access presentations on demand for 30 days following the event.

This virtual conference is FREE for all National Disability Services (NDS) Organisational Members and Associates. It’s also FREE for members of National Disability Practitioners (NDP), and those who operate within NSW.

Funding acknowledgement This virtual conference is funded by the NSW Industry Development Fund, delivered by National Disability Services on behalf of NSW Department of Family and Community Services: Ageing, Disability and Home Care.

From 27 June, 2019 we are changing the service to focus primarily on attracting new workers to the care sector. This will mean closing the job board, as we consider the job board market is increasingly crowded and competitive.

There will be an ongoing digital campaign to drive career changers to a state-of-the-art website that will combine our strengths with those of companion project National Disability Practitioners (NDP). This will continue to deliver on carecareers’ greatest strength as a talent attraction funnel for the sector. However, at the point when jobseekers are ready to make a job application, instead of directing them to our own job board, we will suggest alternatives.

As our job board (but not of course our website) will close on 30 June 2019, any monies committed as a portion of prepaid advertising contracts that extend beyond that date will be refunded in full. If that applies to your organisation, we will shortly be advising you of the amount to be refunded.carecareers was launched back in January 2010 with aim of attracting an estimated 10,000 new workers required to meet the growth in demand in the NSW disability, community and aged care sector.

The project has grown in confidence, ambition and geographical reach. Nine years on, well over 1 million Australians have taken our career quiz, and carecareers has been the catalyst in somewhere north of 50,000 people across the country taking a first step into the workforce. The online job board market is fast moving and increasingly crowded with more and larger international players. Fierce competition has driven down advertising rates.

This significant competition by many large organisations has led us to the conclusion that carecareers should concentrate on those unique aspects of our service that are most important to, and best serve, our sector. At the same time, we intend to step back in areas where our offering is more generic and there are a variety of alternatives.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your outstanding support over the last nine years. carecareers’ success has been forged on the fantastic partnerships we have enjoyed with the leading organisations in this sector.

Blairlogie Living & Learning is a non-profit community organisation based in South Cranbourne, Victoria that has been supporting people with disability since 1987. It is a small organisation, anchored in its community, and with a strong values base.

Our projectABLE student program was keen to collaborate with Blairlogie because of their enviable record with student placements. Sandra Shaw, Blairlogie’s Human Resources Manager, is the driving force behind it.

Sandra tells us that the student placement scheme was started with a ‘not-for-profit mindset’ of getting free pairs of hands to share the load. However, it soon became apparent that the arrangement had much more to offer both Blairlogie and the students.

Many of the students who take up the opportunity are studying for their Certificate IV – the level at which Blairlogie would hope to hire. Others are working towards a Certificate III or diploma. Around 90% of them come to Blairlogie from four local Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) to fulfil the 120 hours requirement of their courses.

At the introduction stage, Blairlogie takes the time to find out about the students’ strengths and hobbies. It uses this information to match them with compatible Disability Support Workers. Many of Blairlogie’s programs are group activities, which offer a great way for the students to acclimatise. Over the course of the program, Blairlogie learns more about the students’ individual characters and skills. This is important in the context of the NDIS where, increasingly, support workers are recruited to work with specific individuals with particular needs.

The student placement program has now been running for over 3 years. Sandra can honestly say that of the 250 who have been through it, there were only two or three that she would not consider employing. Blairlogie has employed over 70 of the students that have completed their placement with Blairlogie.

Of course, as a small organisation, Blairlogie cannot take them all on as employees. However all those who complete the program take Blairlogie’s ethos with them, to the benefit of other employers.

Younger students also get an opportunity to participate, courtesy of Blairlogie’s strong community links. Partnerships with local schools see pupils as early as Year 6 coming in to do activities with Blairlogie’s customers. Sometimes it might be just to hang out or kick a footy around.

On other occasions, it has been training and sports coaching for the Tri State Games. Two current employees had their first contact with Blairlogie in Year 10. Both returned regularly until they secured their Certificate IV and subsequently found work with the organisation.

Blairlogie shares projectABLE’s ethos that exposure to people with disability may not necessarily lead to a career in the disability sector. What it can also do is make them better citizens who treat people with disability with respect, and accept and accommodate them in whatever walk of life.

Sandra says she gets a call ‘every couple of months’ from somebody who has had previous experience of the organisation: “I came in Year 6 and Blairlogie left a strong impression on me”. It is proof that you never know where small connections might lead…